NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-27-2025 3PM EST

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

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Laxmi Singh, NPR News in Washington. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is the latest U.S. ally to visit the White House since President Trump's return to office. Starmer, like French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this week, is attempting to strengthen security and economic relations with the U.S. in light of Trump's attacks on Europe regarding tariffs, NATO defense contributions and continued funding for Ukraine's defense against Russia. Ukraine is dominating today's bilateral talks as the U.S. seeks closer diplomatic ties with Russia. Trump says he thinks Russian President Vladimir

Putin will keep his word on whatever deal struck on ending the war in Ukraine. I don't believe he's going to violate his word. I don't think he'll be back. When we make a deal, I think the deal is going to hold. Trump is expected to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House tomorrow. Both are expected to sign an agreement that grants the U.S. access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals. Zelensky has sought security guarantees as part of a deal. Trump has said that such guarantees will already exist with the U.S.'s presence in Ukraine.

A federal judge in San Francisco will hear arguments this afternoon over a challenge to the administration's dismissal of thousands of probationary employees. NPR's Andrea Hsu reports labor unions are asking the court to halt the firings and reinstate those who have been terminated. Andrea Hsu, NPR's Andrea Hsu, NPR The labor unions represent federal workers who have been fired over the last several weeks, including nurses at the VA and people who work for the Forest Service. They were among those told they were being fired for performance reasons, even though many of them had received positive performance reviews.

Attorneys for the unions argued that the agencies themselves had no plans to fire these employees, and only did so at the direction of the Office of Personnel Management. In a court filing, that agency's acting director denied there was any kind of mass termination program and said agencies made their own decisions about whom to fire. Andrea Hsu, NPR News. The number of people in the United States who are embracing false and misleading claims about immigrants and crime is the subject of a new NPR Ipsos poll. NPR's Joel Rose reports a survey suggests

that those who get their news from conservative media are more likely than others to believe the inaccurate claims. The poll found widespread misperceptions, that immigrants on average commit more crimes than native-born people, and that migrants are smuggling most of the fentanyl that's coming across the southern border.

Those statements are both false, but the NPR Ipsos poll showed that people who get their news from Fox and conservative media were twice as likely to believe them as those who don't. They were also more than twice as likely to believe that many migrants have been released from jails and mental institutions, a claim President Trump has made frequently without any evidence. Joel Rose, NPR News, Washington. At the last check on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up nearly 300 points

or roughly half a percent at 43,729. From Washington, this is NPR News. The European Court of Human Rights has determined that Cyprus law enforcement authorities bungle the initial state of their investigation into allegations that 12 Israeli men had gang-raped a British woman during a 2019 vacation at a resort. The court says the woman, then 18, was held by Cypriot police for questioning without a lawyer. She retracted her rape allegation and a court later convicted her of lying. The court concluded investigators overlooked important details of the case and legal

proceedings were prejudiced against her. The woman's conviction was later overturned and the woman was awarded damages. The U.S. State Department is strongly condemning Thailand, a U.S. ally, for returning more than 40 ethnic Uighurs to China. The U.S. says Beijing has committed genocide and crimes against humanity targeting the mostly Muslim minority. NPR's John Ruich has the latest. The Uighurs had been in detention in Thailand for more than a decade after fleeing China. Activists say they were secretly deported overnight. And according to Thai media, the government there confirmed the deportation, saying Beijing

had guaranteed their safety and protection. The State Department, however, says it's alarmed by this action. It says the deportation is inconsistent with Thailand's commitment to protect human rights and risks running afoul of Thailand's international obligations. The US is calling on countries around the world where Uighurs seek protection not to forcibly return them to China, and it urges the Chinese authorities to provide regular full access to verify the well-being of the returned Uighurs. John Ruch, NPR News.

I'm Lakshmi Singh, NPR News in Washington.